A complaint I see levied at miniatures companies frequently is, "Why don't you produce more ethnic miniatures?" Every time I read this I scratch my head and look at the screen a bit confused and try to decipher what the person is actually trying to ask. Inevitably, further discussion reveals that people want to see more minis produced in 28mm ranges who look "not white". My response to this is the following: Your imagination is YOUR limit. Only you dictate what skintone or ethnicity your miniatures are painted. The company producing the sculpts is not responsible for how YOU view the subject. That is completely up to you and your interpretation.

When we get down to 28mm sized miniatures, trying to sculpt features that look "not white" would be really difficult and possibly even irritate people by ending up too caricatured. Larger scale miniatures can definitely be sculpted to show some of the differences in facial anatomy. However, I still say it's up to you, as the painter, to paint the diversity in your miniatures.

I am a white woman in my 30s. I would get bored if every miniature I painted was 100% representative of my demographic. I LOVE non-caucasian skintones. They are so interesting to paint because I get to use a rainbow of color to achieve a different look for my miniatures. Over the years, I've painted many of my miniatures with non-caucasian skintones and I will continue to do so because it's what interests me as a person. I don't want my fantasy world to be completely white washed. I want diversity. I want to have a wide spectrum of beauty represented in my artwork. I want the real world represented in my artwork too. That means using a rainbow of colors in painting my skintones in miniature.

A Dark Skinned Flower Witch? Don't mind if I do! Golden tan for the highlights and chocolate brown and purple for the shadows. Rainbow of color. I love it!

I don't know that I have much more to say on this matter. It's a really brief point to write about. However, here are photos to further my point. All of these miniatures in the first gallery were sculpted and painted by the parent company as being caucasian. I didn't follow suit. I dared to be different. And so should you!

The second gallery shows the variety you can still achieve within the Caucasian realm. Not all Caucasians have the same tone of "white" skin. There is variety and beauty within all ethnicities! We need to paint it and show it off!

And hey, if you want to paint a green chick, paint a green chick! It's heaps of fun! Blue is also a great skin color ;)